I-T raids offices of Chinese mobile companies for tax evasion

The Income Tax (I-T) Department on Wednesday (December 22) searched the offices of several Chinese mobile phone manufacturing companies in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

As per reports, the raids were conducted based on intelligence inputs of concealed income and tax evasion. Manufacturing facilities, corporate offices and even godowns of these companies were searched in coordinated raids that started around 9am.

The I-T sleuths targeted 15 manufacturing units of Oppo, OnePlus and Xiaomi, Dixon and Rising Star India. They also raided the distribution partners of Oppo. In fact, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) recently penalized this particular distribution company in hundreds of crore rupees.

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Besides searching the offices of these companies, the Income Tax Department also looked into the houses of senior company executives.

IANS reported that Gurugram-based ZTE, a Chinese telecom equipment manufacturing company, too was searched. It was raided in August as well. “We had recorded the statement of their India head in connection with tax evasion. We had found irregularities on their end. They were concealing information to avoid tax,” an I-T official said.

“As an invested partner in India, we highly respect and abide by the law of the land. We will continue to fully cooperate with authorities concerned as per procedure,” Oppo said in a statement to Business Insider India.